Voices from the Blue Nile

War and Survival in Sudan’s Frontierlands: Voices from the Blue Nile, by Wendy James, is now available in paperback. We reprint the review from its earlier (hardback) publication.
Wendy James’s three books on the Uduk people of southern Blue Nile, a frontier area of northern Sudan that abuts both southern Sudan and Ethiopia, describe not only how the Uduk people have been transformed by war and forced displacement””and yet have retained and even rediscovered important parts of their collective identity””but also how discipline of social anthropology itself has been transformed over the same time period. When Prof. James first worked with the Uduk in the 1960s she wrote ethnography in the classic style. The third War and Survival in Sudan’s Borderlands: Voices from the Blue Nile, is a mixture of ethnography, contemporary history and rapportage, exploration of historical sources, and humanitarian engagement.

War and Survival recounts in vivid depth the ordeals undergone by a small community that found itself in the frontline of Sudan’s civil war, whose members were scattered north to Khartoum, south to Southern Sudan, and east to Ethiopia. In some cases they were displaced violently multiple times, in remarkable long treks through mountain, savanna and swamp. Members of the Uduk community fought in several different armies””at some points, on opposing sides in the same battles (an opposition that didn’t prevent them communicating). It is both a personal account of what it means to live and die during such trauma, and a historically and sociologically informed ‘thick description’ too. Some of the incidents sound as though they could have come from the days of turmoil and enslavement of the 19th century, such as the story of one Uduk boy who with his younger sister, rolled down an escarpment while his family was fleeing a gunbattle. The two children were presumed dead and abandoned, but in fact the boy survived and was brought up as an adopted son by a family from the Bertha ethnic group. Years later, he was determined to discover his real””but wholly unknown””identity, with the sole clue to his origin consisting in a wooden back-board (like a rucksack) which Uduk children use to carry their infant siblings. James’s account breaks off just before he was reunited with his mother.

War and Survival is a treasure trove for those wanting to understand what wars in Sudan really mean to the people who are trampled by them. One of the themes that emerges strongly is that the Uduk people tend not to assess an individual in a position of authority by which side he took in the war, but by his personal behavior””decency or cruelty when he had the power of life or death over people in his charge. A fair number of young Uduk lads joined the Sudan army or police, as a means of gaining employment or authority””and were regarded by their community not as traitors or sellouts, but as representatives within a power structure that would never be accountable to them, but might at least occasionally treat them with mercy. One of the military commanders with the worst reputations in Blue Nile””an ‘Arab'””also turns out to have had an Uduk mother. Not rehabilitated, he is at least understood.

Another theme is that the disruptions visited upon the Uduk””with the appalling levels of bloodshed and starvation””are a reprise of history that has been incorporated into the people’s cultural archive. In the 19th century, the Uduk lived in the marchlands between two aggressive empires, Sudan and Ethiopia, both of which regarded peripheral peoples as commodities to be enslaved, or vermin to be hunted. At the time of James’s first stays with the Uduk in the 1960s, these seemed like foundational myths or ancient history””but subsequently came to have much greater resonance. James’s command of the Uduk vernacular and her long personal history with the people allows her to record and interpret their songs, dances, stories and sermons while in flight or in exile with subtlety and insight, showing how identity is preserved under stresses that, to a casual observer, might seem to be sufficient to dismantle a society altogether. This is a remarkable book””anyone wishing to understand the experience of war in Sudan, should study it.

From apparently hopeless beginnings, Mauritius has become one of Africa’s most celebrated countries. But tough challenges are on the horizon. The story of how Mauritius defied the gloomy predictions of ...

About

African Arguments is a pan-African platform for news analysis, comment and opinion. We seek to analyse issues facing the continent, investigate the stories that matter, and amplify a diversity of voices.